Intermediaries can help everyone do better in competitive standard-setting problems by acting as a commitment device that strategically sometimes rewards ‘bad’ ideas. Applications to political primaries and technology compatibility problems.

Model of use of information with an intergenerational externality; in general neither competitive or monopolized markets correct the externality; as costs fall, monopolized information is increasingly inefficient; open access is good for either efficiency, consumer surplus, or both.

Firms competing to inform a population in which consumers share information across network links; targeting patterns depend on structure of the informers’ industry; in some cases network owners strategically induce an advertising arms race in equilibrium.

Forces of cannibalization, product market competition, and fit costs generate inefficient outcomes in the market for ideas, even without contracting frictions or asymmetric information. Some ideas are inefficiently acquired and killed by incumbent firms; some are inefficiently developed by incumbent firms rather than spin-outs or start-ups.

Eccentric experts (working paper coming soon)

Experts who try to identify superior products may have eccentric tastes or fallibility that causes mistakes. Eccentricity, though, can be welfare enhancing by encouraging experimentation among producers.

Takes

Senders choose whether to produce “scoops” or “takes”—costly original content, or costless commentary on previous scoops. The sender has incentive to invest in take-generating technology but not scoop-generating technology, and when there are multiple senders, there are inefficiently many takes relative to scoops.

A few things I’m currently working on: valuing social network data, literary readings of intermediate microeconomics models, learning and assimilation in organizations, competitive public relations, and an angel/devil on your shoulders model of decision-making. Feel free to drop me a line if you’d like to talk about these, or any other topics you think I might be interested in.